Muscogee County School District in Georgia Expands Partnership with Achieve3000

Achieve3000, the Leader in Differentiated Instruction®, has helped Title I students in 13 schools make significant and substantive gains in vocabulary, reading comprehension, and total reading skills. LAKEWOOD, N.J. Dec. 5, 2016 – After successfully implementing Achieve3000’s literacy solutions in 13 of the district’s lowest-performing Title I elementary, middle and high schools, Muscogee County School District (MCSD) in Columbus, Georgia, will expand its implementation to include 21 additional schools. Participating schools will receive Achieve3000’s 24/7 differentiated, blended instruction for students, teaching resources and blended professional development for educators, real-time data dashboard for administrators, and robust home support for parents and guardians.

LAKEWOOD, N.J. Dec. 5, 2016 – After successfully implementing Achieve3000’s literacy solutions in 13 of the district’s lowest-performing Title I elementary, middle and high schools, Muscogee County School District (MCSD) in Columbus, Georgia, will expand its implementation to include 21 additional schools. Participating schools will receive Achieve3000’s 24/7 differentiated, blended instruction for students, teaching resources and blended professional development for educators, real-time data dashboard for administrators, and robust home support for parents and guardians.

“For the next three years, Achieve3000 and the MCSD will work together to accelerate learning and put more students on track for college and career success,” said David F. Lewis, Ed.D., Superintendent of Education,

Muscogee County School District. “Students who participated in our district’s Achieve3000 pilot program as recommended realized significant overall Lexile gains that allowed us to accelerate their literacy instruction. As

a result, our district expanded the use of Acieve3000 to schools throughout our district this school year.”

Over the 2015-16 school year, students who worked with Achieve3000’s literacy solutions, KidBizPro® for grades 2-5, TeenBizPro® for grades 6-8, and EmpowerPro® for grades 9-12 (Pro) saw significant literacy gains. Schools where students completed at least 40 reading activities (on average once per week) with the Achieve3000 Pro Georgia Edition saw the greatest growth, outperforming schools that weren’t using Achieve3000 by an average of 74 Lexile® points. Schools where students completed less than 40 activities also saw improved literacy gains, more so than non-using schools, exceeding the latter by an average of 14 points.

In addition, a July 30 story in the area’s local newspaper, the “Ledge-Enquirer,” reported that MCSD outperformed the three other districts in Georgia’s second-tier cities on the 2015 and 2016 Georgia Milestones Assessment System. MCSD narrowed the gap between its test scores and the state averages on 12 tests this year:

·third-grade English language arts, science, and social studies

·fourth-grade science and social studies

·fifth-grade English language arts, math, science, and social studies

·seventh-grade science

·eighth-grade social studies

·high school biology

Except for fifth-grade math, those tests covered areas in which MCSD uses Pro solutions, which are designed for English language arts, science, and social studies classrooms with a mix of student abilities or diverse student populations. MCSD’s Pro Georgia Edition is further customized to support mastery of Georgia’s grade-level standards and give students regular and targeted practice for the Georgia Milestones assessments.

“We are very excited to partner with a district as dedicated to 21st-century learning and student success as Muscogee County School District,” said Saki Dodelson, CEO and founder of Achieve3000. “We share their commitment to improving literacy achievement for all learners. By meeting kids at their precise reading level at 12 levels in English and 7 in Spanish, our blended, differentiated instruction solutions help all students accelerate their reading growth and get on track for college and career success. It’s been proven that students who use our solutions regularly make double to triple the expected reading gains in a single school year. We’re looking forward to collaborating with the innovative educators at Muscogee County Schools to meet and exceed their literacy goals for every student in the years to come.”

The Muscogee County School District, which serves approximately 32,000 students, is located in Central Georgia Region. Under the leadership of Superintendent Dr. David Lewis, the district is in the middle of a five-year strategic plan to improve reading and literacy, numeracy, science and social studies skills while actively engaging students and teachers. The plan started in 2012, when the district began to develop a comprehensive academic model that prepares every student for the demands of the 21st-century work force.

An integral part of the district’s plan is Achieve3000’s Pro literacy solutions. By differentiating the same grade-appropriate content at 12 reading levels in English and seven in Spanish, and providing robust scaffolds for struggling students and English language learners, Pro extends teachers’ reach without increasing workloads or time demands. At the same time, Achieve3000’s proprietary adaptive content system continually monitors each student’s reading performance and automatically increases the level of text complexity when it detects that an individual is ready for more challenge, steadily moving students up level by level. In addition, because Achieve3000’s solutions are cloud-based, students can use their digital devices to access Pro anytime and anywhere – even without an Internet connection.

Pro offers a library of more than 10,000 nonfiction science and social studies lessons. Each lesson delivers students the grade-level disciplinary knowledge and academic vocabulary they need to succeed across the entire curriculum, tailored to each student’s precise reading level. Lessons give students unmatched access to content-area instruction by providing both a high-interest article on a contemporary topic and an academic background text to unlock understanding, all written at a student’s individual Lexile® reading level. Students then “stretch” their skills by reading a version of the same lesson written with grade-level text complexity, building the stamina and strength they need for the Georgia Milestones assessments. Plus, with new lessons added weekly, the program’s standards-aligned strategic curriculum gives educators both the content-area topics and literacy scaffolds needed to help students with reading strategy development, building the academic vocabulary, critical-thinking skills, and evidence-based writing abilities needed for college and career readiness.

“We have a long-standing track record of accelerating reading gains for all students,” said Dodelson. “This marks our 15th school year in meeting kids one-on-one, at their individual reading levels, and preparing them for college and career success. We’re thrilled that Muscogee County district leaders have expanded the use of Achieve3000 so we can continue to show the positive and dramatic impact our solutions have on student learning outcomes.”

About Achieve3000, Inc.

Achieve3000 is the leader in online differentiated literacy instruction, serving over two million students worldwide. For nearly 15 years, the company has been reaching students at their individual reading levels to deliver significant learning gains, with many making double to triple the expected gains in a single school year. Based on decades of scientific research, Achieve3000’s solutions – Smarty Ants (for grades PreK-1), KidBiz3000 (for grades 2-5), TeenBiz3000 (for grades 6-8), Empower3000 (for grades 9-12), Spark3000 (for adult learners), and eScience3000 (for grades 6-8) – support core curriculum, Response to Intervention, English language learner, and special education instructional models as well as 21st-century education initiatives. From learning how to read to workforce readiness, Achieve3000 empowers all learners to develop the college and career literacy skills needed for academic, professional, and personal success. The company is based in Lakewood, N.J. Learn more about Achieve3000 online at www.achieve3000.com or by calling 888-968-6822.

Achieve3000, the Leader in Differentiated Instruction, is helping fourth- and fifth-grade students at Margate Elementary School in Broward County, Fla., to realize accelerated reading growth and increased college and career readiness. LAKEWOOD, N.J. – Dec. 27, 2016 – Almost a year into its partnership with Achieve3000, Margate Elementary School in Margate, Fla., is seeing greater than expected literacy gains among fourth- and fifth-grade students using KidBiz3000®, one of Achieve3000’s differentiated literacy solutions. The goal of this long-term partnership, which started in November 2015, is to accelerate learning, improve literacy and put students at the school on track for college and career success.

Achieve3000, the Leader in Differentiated Instruction, Proven to Help Students Make Significant and Substantive Gains in Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension, and Total Reading Skills LAKEWOOD, N.J. – July 11, 2016 – Achieve3000®, the leading literacy solution in blended, differentiated learning programs today, announced that its literacy solutions KidBizPro® for grades 2-5, TeenBizPro® for grades 6-8, and EmpowerPro® for grades 9-12 have been named Best of Show by NewBay Media publications, Tech & Learning, at ISTE 2016. Achieve3000’s Pro suite of products was one of dozens of products evaluated at the International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) annual conference, which took place June 26-29 in Denver, Colo.

Achieve3000, the Leader in Differentiated Instruction, will facilitate educators’ access to Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory and Microsoft will provide tools and resources to expand Achieve3000’s reach and impact. LAKEWOOD, N.J. – March 13, 2017 – Achieve3000, the leading literacy platform in blended learning programs for students in grades Pre-K through12, today announced that it is the first partner to join Microsoft’s Education GTM program. The company has become an Associate Microsoft Education Partner; its differentiated literacy solutions are now integrated with Azure, the open, flexible, enterprise-grade cloud computing service from Microsoft and are listed on the Azure Marketplace online store.

Achieve3000, the Leader in Differentiated Instruction, can now forecast student performance on the Smarter Balanced ELA assessments, expanding on the number of state tests for which educators can forecast results. New Challenge courses also provide students with targeted practice for each state’s specific test. LAKEWOOD, N.J. – Dec.12, 2016 – Achieve3000® has launched a new proprietary forecasting tool that allows educators to predict their students’ performance on the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium’s ELA assessments (SBAC). Achieve3000’s forecasting reports, designed to help educators predict and enhance student performance on high-stakes state reading tests, were already available for seven states. The new SBAC forecasting report expands this capacity to educators in an additional 14 states and the US Virgin Islands.

Achieve3000, the Leader in Differentiated Instruction, and Ray D. Molo Middle School, a school in southern Louisiana, partnered to produce dramatic literacy gains and improved scores on the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program. LAKEWOOD, N.J. – Oct. 13, 2016 – Seven months into its partnership with Achieve3000, a Calcasieu Parish School in Lake Charles, La., saw greater than expected literacy gains on the Spring 2016 Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) for English language arts among middle school students regularly using one of Achieve3000’s differentiated literacy solutions. The goal of this long-term partnership, which started in late October 2015, is to accelerate learning and put Ray D. Molo Middle School students on track for college and career success.

Achieve3000, the Leader in Differentiated Instruction, and Rowan-Salisbury School System, a North Carolina district committed to 21st-century learning, report literacy gains over and above the growth expected with typical instruction among elementary, middle and high school students. LAKEWOOD, N.J. – August 8, 2016 – Less than one year into its partnership with Achieve3000, the Rowan-Salisbury Schools System in Salisbury, N.C. is seeing greater than expected literacy gains among students regularly using Achieve3000’s differentiated literacy solutions. The goal of this groundbreaking, long-term partnership, which started in 2015, is to accelerate learning and put all Rowan-Salisbury students on track for college and career success. The evaluation periods of the elementary, middle and high school groups ran from the fall of 2015 through early June in 2016.

Achieve3000, the Leader in Differentiated Instruction, reports literacy gains over and above the growth expected with typical instruction across all grades and among subgroups such as struggling readers, ELL students and intervention students. LAKEWOOD, N.J. – Nov. 28, 2016 – A nationwide Lexile study of more than 1.1 million students who used Achieve3000’s differentiated literacy solutions during the 2015-2016 school year found significant Lexile reading growth at every grade level, over and above what would be expected with typical instruction. In fact, students using the program with the recommended frequency made more than double their expected reading gains – increasing their Lexile reader measure by 153 points rather than the expected 70 points.